senate is expected to vote this afternoon on a bill to suspend the debt ceiling for -- why not suspend it indefinitely? the house passed the measure last week. the senate version includes several republican amendments, matching spending cuts, every dollar increase in the ceiling and that's not expected to get passed. it will suspend it to may the 19th when it will be raised by the amount the treasury borrows in the interim. why -- greg is with us. greg is the economist. can we just get rid of the debt ceiling? it's a real brawl. >> just deep six that sucker like no other country deals with this it ottic device. hey, i'm going to borrow some money, but i'll think twice over whether i'm going to pay the bill when it comes. >> what if it was the founding father himself who said i think we ought to have a debt ceiling so as to avoid fiscal recklessness? >> well, in fact, the debt ceiling, the reason we have one is because up until 100 years ago, we voted on every bond issue individually. so you think it's bad now, just imagine if we had had that situation. but looking forward, though, this